John is Managing General Partner of Startup Capital Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture fund. He has 20 years of experience as CEO of five financial services companies. Most recently, from 1993 to 2001, he served as the CEO of Silicon Valley Bank, a leading provider of financial services to early-stage technology companies and venture capital firms. John grew Silicon Valley Bank's market capitalization from $65 million in 1993 to over $3 billion in 2000. Also, he led the creation of the company's own venture investment business, with the launch of the company's first two venture capital funds in 2000. This included a $150 million fund of funds, and a $65 million direct equity fund. In 1997, Business Week recognized John as one of Silicon Valley's top 25 "movers and shakers" and, in 2001, Forbes ranked him as one of the "50 most powerful dealmakers." In 2001, Fortune ranked Silicon Valley Bank, under John's leadership, among the "100 Fastest-Growing Companies" based on growth in revenues, earnings per share, and total market return over three years.
John also has many years of experience investing in technology companies. He has served as Managing Director of Tuputele Ventures Fund, LLC, a small private equity fund investing in early-stage technology companies and venture capital funds. He is an investment director for various venture capital firms, both in the U.S. and overseas, including Advanced Technology Venture (ATV), Institutional Venture Fund (IVP), Walden International, Leapfrog Ventures, and Authosis Capital. John serves as an advisor or director of various technology companies, including EzRez Software, H-5 Technologies, and BioImagene. John was a founding director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation in Silicon Valley and for a six-month period during 2001-2002, was its interim CEO.
Leigh-Ann is Vice President of DragonBridge Capital, LLC, a merchant bank that helps Chinese technology, life sciences, and clean tech companies with capital formation, joint ventures, M&A, venture capital, and other private equity needs. She also has more than 10 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. She was formerly Executive Director of HiBEAM, an accelerator for early stage Hawai`i technology companies. She was the founding Program Director of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies in Washington, D.C. as well as the Washington, D.C. lobbyist for the Japanese American Citizens League.
Previously, Leigh-Ann was an attorney concentrating on commercial and other civil litigation. She was counsel to Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing in Honolulu, of counsel to Fujiyama, Duffy & Fujiyama in Honolulu, and a partner in Erickson, Beasley & Hewitt in San Francisco (now Erickson, Beasley, Hewitt & Wilson in Oakland). She is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall).
Mark Rossi is Vice Chairman, Corporate Secretary, and a member of the Managing Committee at the Bank of Hawaii. He is also General Counsel and leads a team which services its clients in all aspects of Legal, Human Resources, Corporate Communications, Government Relations, Corporate Security and Corporate Insurance Services.
Prior to joining the Bank of Hawaii, Mark was a partner at Lane Powell from 1996-2006, where he concentrated his practice on a broad array of banking issues. Lane Powell is a Seattle, Washington-based law firm of approximately 180 attorneys with six offices located in Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and London, England. Mark served as the firm's Managing Partner and President from 2004-2006.
Mark gained significant banking experience while employed in the First Interstate Bank system from 1983-1996 in Seattle, Washington. During that period, he held various local and regional positions, including that of Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary.
A native of Minnesota, Mark obtained his B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis, Minnesota) in 1971. He received a J.D. from Willamette University (Salem, Oregon) in 1974. Mark is admitted to practice law in the state and federal courts of Hawaii, Oregon and Washington, as well as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and United States Supreme Court. He serves on the Boards of the Hawaii Chapter of the American Judicature Society and the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs (HIPA).
Rachel Ogdie is a consultant to Sprout, which provides a software platform
that enables brands and agencies to create and manage rich social ads and
engaging social media applications. She was formerly the Executive Director
of HiBEAM, a nonprofit organization that helps launch and build promising
early stage Hawaii technology, biotechnology, and life sciences companies by
providing expert professional advice and access to funding sources. Prior to
joining HiBEAM, Rachel was a practicing lawyer in California and Oregon, as
well as a teacher at Punahou School. Rachel's background also includes
co-founding NetCorps (www.netcorps.org) in 1995 and working as COO of an ASP
serving nonprofit organizations in San Francisco in 2000. She has
volunteered her time as a grantmaker at McKenzie River Gathering Foundation
and currently sits on the Argosy University Advisory Board.
Rachel holds bar licenses in California, Oregon, and Hawaii. She graduated
from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in Political
Science and she holds a J.D. from the University of Oregon School of Law.
John Bower is CEO of uBoost, an online, research-based rewards system designed to enhance the way educators inspire and motivate their students. John has 20 years of business experience managing high growth companies. He is also a Co-Founder of Sennet Capital and former CFO and COO at Hawaii Biotech where he helped to secure over $50 million in equity and grant funding.
John came to Hawaii from Chicago where he co-founded and operated HealthRev, a national healthcare front office outsourcing company. In less than three years, John expanded HealthRev to ten states, over two hundred employees and $5 million in annual cash flow. In 1999 John sold HealthRev to a Chicago-based private equity firm where he remained for two years to assist in the transition. The sale resulted in a 15 times return for investors. Prior to HealthRev, John was a founder and Managing Director of a boutique investment company that specialized in debt and equity funding for start-ups and high growth companies throughout the United States.
John serves on the boards of several Hawaii and Mainland companies. He graduated with honors with his BS and MBA from Cornell University.
Dave Kozuki is the founder and CEO of People Bridge, which develops Internet-based software for building neighborhood communities. People Bridge moved to Hawai'i from Silicon Valley in 2005. Prior to People Bridge, he was the VP of Business Development and Sales at PacifiCall, a developer of telecommunications software for mobile phones and PCs based in Palo Alto. At Sylantro of Campbell, Dave developed strategic alliances with domestic and international device manufacturers to interoperate with the Sylantro VoIP application server. As a program manager for the Net Generation group at IBM in Mountain View, Dave helped start the international Application Service Provider partner program ASP Prime. He ran a five-store retail chain as its president and held sales and marketing management positions with Sprint, IBM, and Pacific LightNet in Hawai'i. Dave graduated from UH Manoa with a BBA in Management Information Systems and Marketing.
Josh Levinson was formerly President and CEO of Community Links Hawai'i, a nonprofit incubator for innovative ideas and people. Josh was born and raised in Hawai'i, graduating from Punahou School before leaving Hawai'i for college.
While away from Hawai'i, Josh's experience included: working at the Center for Documentary Studies on a large oral history project documenting African-American life in the segregated South; public radio production at Marketplace Productions in Los Angeles; and working as a project ethnographer, documenting the occupational health hazards of commercial fishing in North Carolina.
Immediately prior to coming home to join Community Links Hawai'i, Josh was Deputy Director at the District of Columbia's premier public interest advocacy organization, the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, tackling some of the most intractable public policy problems facing our nation's capital city.
Some of Josh's little-known or forgotten accomplishments include co-founding a radio show on WXYC-FM in Chapel Hill, NC, called "Hell or High Water," and starting an ill-conceived company called "Dump, Inc." that offered to take out people's trash for a nominal fee.
Josh is a graduate of Duke University and holds a Master's degree in Folklore from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He lives in Kailua with his wife, son, and persnickety cat.
Dutch-born Henk Rogers is known internationally as a leader in the highly competitive electronic video game industry. After his studies in computer science and game theory at the University of Hawaii, Henk embarked on a highly successful career in Japan where he designed and programmed that country's first role-playing game, The Black Onyx, in the early 1980s. He is probably best known for his role in helping make Tetris the world's most popular video game after he built a strong relationship with the game's Soviet creator and won the distribution rights.
A serial entrepreneur, Henk moved to Hawaii in the 1990s and has formed several companies here, including Blue Planet Software, which manages the intellectual property rights to Tetris. Henk recently formed the Blue Planet Foundation with a mission to change the world's energy culture, raise global awareness of the imperative to implement clean renewable energy, and address the increasingly urgent climate crisis.
Bennett Wo is a Vice President of C.S. Wo & Sons, where his responsibilities include asset management, alternative investments, and internet applications. As a founding partner of Wo Capital Group, he oversees investments in private equity and venture capital.
He is also managing partner of BJM Properties, a real estate development fund, BJM Partners, a fund which invests in early-stage Hawai'i companies, and The Wo Private Equity Fund, a fund which invests globally in private equity.
Prior responsibilities at C.S. Wo included managing the company's restaurant supply subsidiary (American Restaurant Supply), the furniture operations division, and the bedding division.
Bennett sits on the board of directors of the Hawai'i Angels, Hawai'i Venture Group, Pacific Venture Capital, Punahou Alumni Association, and the Honolulu Symphony. He graduated from Punahou School, and earned engineering degrees from Stanford University and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management.
Mark Rossi is Vice Chairman, Corporate Secretary, and a member of the Managing Committee at the Bank of Hawaii. He is also General Counsel and leads a team which services its clients in all aspects of Legal, Human Resources, Corporate Communications, Government Relations, Corporate Security and Corporate Insurance Services.
Dutch-born Henk Rogers is known internationally as a leader in the highly competitive electronic video game industry. After his studies in computer science and game theory at the University of Hawaii, Henk embarked on a highly successful career in Japan where he designed and programmed that country's first role-playing game, The Black Onyx, in the early 1980s. He is probably best known for his role in helping make Tetris the world's most popular video game after he built a strong relationship with the game's Soviet creator and won the distribution rights. 
Bennett Wo is a Vice President of C.S. Wo & Sons, where his responsibilities include asset management, alternative investments, and internet applications. As a founding partner of Wo Capital Group, he oversees investments in private equity and venture capital.